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In 1972, I remember briefly meeting a young man from my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia who had volunteered in the American Army for the Vietnam War. He was home on leave to see his Mom, and regaled us with stories for an hour or so before he went back to the States to the war that seemed so far away.

He had joined approximately 30,000* other Canadians who fought in Southeast Asia, and although he wasn't among the 103 dead and seven that are still listed as Missing in Action, the memory of meeting him is still fresh in my mind.

In March, 2008, a partnership was struck between Footnote.com and the American National Archives and Records Administration to honour those 58,000 plus who died in the Vietnam War from various parts of the world.

First of all, The Wall Moument in Washington, DC has been duplicated on the Web. Peter Krough, a National Geographic photographer, was given the challenge of putting the entire wall on the Internet, and he did it by "stitching" together 1,500 photos to make one single image.

And now, the National Archives has linked service records and casualty reports to each name on the wall.

So to find someone, all you have to do is to type in the person's name and once the name is located on the wall, the researcher can see the soldier's service record and comments, stories, and photos that have been put there by other visitors.

Another site is The Canadians Vietnam Veterans Memorial Association http://www.canadiansinvietnam.ca. They have taken the names from The North Wall and have put them on the site. It also lists the names of those who are missing in action.

You can also visit their "Events" page, "Photo Gallery" and read about the Windsor Veterans Memorial Service Committee, started in 1926 and which is "Dedicated to those that served".

In story form, it covers the Canadian soldiers who were in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf, the Peacekeepers, and about the men and women soldiers who are currently in Afghanistan.

* The number of Canadians who enrolled to fight on the American side has never been determined. They can range anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 Canadian soldiers.

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